Misconstrued
by Seaouryou
Summary: Stan, Kyle, Aspen, and a relationship that everyone misinterprets but them. [Genfic]


Genfic. Meaning it's not slash. No, _really_. Don't be fooled. This is friendship!fic.

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Stan and Kyle were gayer than gay, according to Kenny.

Stan and Kyle were going at it anytime, everywhere. Probably. Behind the bleachers and in the locker rooms and down by Stark's Pond, probably. Places no one would see them. In the stoner's bathroom, too, most likely. If you listen to Kenny.

But if you listen to Kenny he'll also tell you there are hula parties in hell and only Mormons get into the heaven, and everyone knows he's making that up (I mean, come on, he _must_ be), so you really have to take everything Kenny has to say with a grain of salt.

--

It started - for their families, at the very least - with that nightmare of a trip to Aspen. So their families had the timeshare, but they never took advantage of it, and were too afraid of what might happen if they stopped paying for it every year. So the cabin just sat there year after year, empty for one weekend in the winter.

Until, that is, Kenny found out about it one day during their freshman year and begged Cartman, Kyle, and Stan to go, appealing to their consciences about how he'd never gotten to do it, being dead and all. Or, at least, he appealed to Kyle and Stan's consciences. It was a choice between Aspen and spending winter break with his grandmother. Apparently, Kenny's grandmother liked to yell and smack him with her cane when he wasn't looking.

They'd still refused, however, so Kenny went over their heads and appealed to Mr. and Mrs. Marsh directly. Kenny held a strange power over the Marsh clan. Jimbo liked him, Randy liked him, Sharon adored him - even Shelley was fond of him, though that was probably because he was the only guy who'd flirt with her.

And that's how the Broflovskis and the Marshes, along with the additional company of Kenny and Cartman, found themselves driving back to the last place any of them really wanted to go. Ike, amazingly, got out of it. So did Shelley. Kyle and Stan decided their siblings were now dead to them and they would be only children henceforth.

While Kenny and Cartman played some game were they punched each other every time a "hippy-mobile" drove past, (except Cartman didn't actually tell Kenny they were playing before hand, so every ten minutes or so Kenny shouted "Cut it _out_, fatass!"), Stan and Kyle sat in the back and chatted amiably. Kyle complained about his mother, mostly, because she was in a different car, and said things like, "Man, my mom still treats me like a kid. She wanted to go through my bag to make sure I had my _toothbrush_. I mean, okay, I _didn't_, but that's beside the point..."

Every time Mr. Marsh looked in the rearview mirror at them he noticed they were leaning in closer than most people leaned into other people, but that really could be explained away by all the duffle bags they were stuffed between, so he thought no more of it.

--

When they got to the cabin, a local law enforcement officer came by and warned them all that bear sightings in the area had increased, but the probability of them being maimed and devoured messily were so slim it was laughable.

"Oh _no_," Kenny groaned.

Kyle dug his elbow into Stan's side to get his attention and grinned, amused. "Don't worry, man. Just stick next to me."

"What," he said, "are you going to protect me?"

"No," Kyle said, grinning wider. "I'm going to use you as a meat shield and make my escape while they feast on you."

"Oh, very funny," Kenny said. "Getting eaten stings like a _bitch_."

"Hey, you have no right to complain," Kyle said. "You're the one who wanted to come so badly!"

"I know," Kenny said. "And I mean, my grandmother's a grade-A crazy-ass bitch who thinks it's funny to trip her grandson with her cane when he's clearing off the table and then hit him with it for breaking her china, and there aren't even any hot farmers' daughters around her ranch, and I woke up one night to find the chickens sitting on my bed just _watching me sleep_, but it's not like I _want_ to get eaten."

"No way in hell am I sharing a bed with the Jew!" Cartman hollered from upstairs. Kyle blinked and looked questioningly at Kenny and Stan; they both shrugged, just as baffled, and climbed the stairs to the bedrooms.

"What's up?" Stan asked, and his mother turned to him and explained the situation to them. Kyle's reaction was quite similar to Cartman's.

"No way in hell am I sharing a bed with the fatass!"

"What do you mean, there are only two beds for the four of us?" Stan asked, alarmed.

"Well, you dealt with it just fine last time we were here-"

"We were _eight_ the last time we were here!" Kyle cried, outraged. "You can't cram five teenagers into one room!"

"Five?" Mr. Marsh repeated blankly.

"Cartman counts as two."

"EY! You think I _want_ to breath your recycled Jew-air?"

"Now, boys, don't argue," Mr. Broflovski said, keeping a sharp eye out for Sheila, the unspoken addition to that command being 'while my wife is in earshot.' "This is how many beds we have for you. You're going to have to work something out."

"No way am I going to share a bed like some welfare child," Cartman swore.

"What! So you get one to yourself and me, Stan, and Kenny are supposed to share?" Kenny frowned a little.

"Well, if you guys were chicks I would be _so into this_, but..."

"I'll sleep on the couch," Stan said, making an exasperated noise.

Kyle scowled. "I'll sleep downstairs, too, I guess. If I have to."

"Wonderful," Mrs. Marsh said, giving her son a thankful squeeze on the shoulder. "It makes me so happy when you do the mature thing."

Stan grumbled a little. It obviously didn't make him happy.

They all retired, because it had been a long drive, and the last thing the Broflovskis and the Marshs saw their sons doing before they disappeared into their rooms was rifle through the closets, unearthing blankets.

The first thing they saw their sons doing when they got up the next morning to make tea and hot chocolate was sleeping on the couch that, really, wasn't big enough for one person, let alone two. Kyle was drooling on Stan's abdomen and Stan was snoring, his leg twitching, which was jammed up underneath Kyle's body.

They stared for a while, and wondered how to go about this situation. But Stan woke up shortly and shoved Kyle off of himself, complaining about how sick drool was. Kyle hit the ground and called him an asshole and demanded satisfaction in caffeinated liquid form, and because this was all normal enough their parents did nothing.

"We have early morning ski instructions, boys," Mrs. Broflovski said. "So you better hurry up and get dressed."

"Oh, they've already taken the lessons once before," Mrs. Marsh protested. "I'm sure a bunch of teenaged boys have things they'd rather do while on vacation than spend the day with their parents."

Sheila's mouth drew into a hard, thin line, but Kenny gave Sharon that grin that had completely bewitched the Marsh family and thanked her profusely. Stan knew - he just _knew_ - that Kenny was trying to usurp his position in his family so that he could kill him and take his place.

"God, Kenny," he breathed after breakfast, while their parents left the cabin, "stop flirting with my mother."

Kenny turned and smirked at him. "The sixth graders were right, man. She _does_ have the sweetest boobs in town. She ages so well."

"Kenny, I am _not even kidding_," Stan swore. "If you don't knock it off I'll kill you until you don't come back."

"Kenny, you're a perverse creep, Stan, your mom is hot," Kyle said, who was in a better mood now that he'd gotten his morning shot of caffeine. He but his mug in the sink and edged between the two. "Come on, let's go do something."

At first they tried going to the youth center, but they decided within the first five minutes that it really was _that lame_ and should have been knocked down when they'd had the opportunity. So they left, and wandered around, and Kenny wrote is name in the snow and Kyle told him he was a sick creep, really, people took their _families_ here. There were _kids_ running around.

Then Cartman had a brilliant idea. According to him.

--

There were two explanations for their present situation. The first was that Cartman stole a snow blower; assured Kyle, Stan, and Kyle that he could drive it; saw a bear and lost his cool; promptly drove it through the woods while scarcely missing all the trees; plowed into a snowdrift and totaled it; and sent them all flying.

The second explanation was it is was Kyle's fault, because he was a Jew.

They'd lit a small fire with Kenny's lighter and huddled around it, shivering and periodically cursing Cartman. Stan and Kyle had their arms wrapped around each other for warmth, and no one could make heads or tails of what Kenny was saying because his teeth were chattering. The hood was insubstantial.

"... I think I hear bears," Kenny finally forced out, rubbing his arms.

"How can you hear a bear?" Kyle asked, wrinkling his nose. "It's not like they howl. They make no distinctive identifying noises at all."

"Kyle," Stan said seriously, interrupting, "we are most likely going to die together."

"How romantic and inconvenient," Kyle said just as seriously.

"Fags," Cartman said. They ignored him.

"Kyle," Stan went on, "if you survive, I want you to make sure they respect my wishes regarding my corpse."

"Which are...?"

"I want to be stuffed. And mounted on the wall."

Kyle nodded solemnly. "All right. And if you survive, make sure they give me a viking funeral."

Stan was silence for a minute. Then he turned and faced Kyle, one eyebrow arched. They were breathing on each other's faces. "Viking funeral?"

He nodded again. "They put you on a boat with your weapons, animals, and servants, and then they set you on fire."

"... Oh, _cool_." Stan said. "I changed my mind; forget taxidermy, I want to be burned at sea."

"Fags," Cartman said again. They continued to ignore him.

They were like that when their parents finally found them, hours later, huddled around the fire and wondering if the bears would leave the rest of them alone if they offered up one as a sacrifice. Their parents looked at Stan and Kyle, and at the way they were clinging to each other with their faces an inch apart, and then they all exchanged bewildered looks.

When they got to the cabin the boys fought over the shower; Stan and Kyle generously gave up being first or second (really, neither wanted to see Cartman in a state of undress) and sat on the brick fireplace, their backs to the fire, drying off.

"We're still alive," Stan observed.

"No, I think I died little," Kyle said.

"Really?"

"Only a little. Not enough to count."

"It's just as well," Stan said. "There aren't any oceans in Colorado."

"... I'm not entirely sure viking funerals are legal, anyway," Kyle added thoughtfully.

--

Their parents decide to make up for the cold, uncomfortable day they'd spent abandoned in the woods by allowing them to make s'mores around the fireplace. This was something Kyle was horrible at, and he kept burning his marshmallows and getting melted chocolate on his fingers. Stan was eyeing Kyle out of the corner of his eye while he made a mess.

"Stan, God damn it, quit giving me that look," he finally said, which of course made the everyone look. But Kyle was just looking at Stan, so he didn't notice. "If you wanted it, you only had to ask."

Sheila Broflovski's jaw dropped. And then Kyle was leaning toward Stan and they were _all_ gaping at the two of them as Kyle...

... stuffed the bag of marshmallows into Stan's hands.

"A-Ha!" Stan cried, punching the air in victory and promptly sliding seven marshmallows on his stick, creating a marshmallow shish kebob. Kyle rolled his eyes at him and their parents laughed nervously, which finally caught his attention. He turned around and his eyebrows drew down, confused.

"What's everybody staring at?"

"Nothing," Mrs. Marsh said hastily. "Let's all get to bed, hm?"

Stan and Kyle slept together again, in the most literal sense of the word.

--

The next morning, Mrs. Broflovski insisted on not letting the boys out of their sight.

"After what happened yesterday?" she cried, indignant, and continued on in this manner until everyone caved in.

"Now, isn't this nice?" she asked several hours later, while they were all hiking through the woods. "What's that you're humming, Eric?"

"Who, me?" Cartman asked innocently. "Nothing, Mrs. Broflovski." Kyle glared daggers at him. He was already in a bad mood because he'd lost his gloves yesterday in the crash and was trudging through knee-deep snow with his parents. Any time Kyle spent with his parents he wrote off as a bad time.

"I'm going to get frostbite," he muttered. "They're going to have to chop off my hands."

"That sucks," Stan said mildly. Kyle glared at him. He was obviously not grasping the seriousness of the situation.

"I'll be _handless_."

"Sucks to be you."

"Shut up," Kyle commanded, and then got an idea. "Hey, come're." Stan did so, and and Kyle slid his hands up under his shirt.

"Much better."

"Man, your hands are cold," Stan whined.

"That's what I've been _saying!_"

The Broflovskis and the Marshes gaped at their children. And then Mr. Broflovski finally found his voice.

"Boys, is there anything you, um... want to tell us?"

"Yeah, it's freezing-ass cold out here," Kyle said. "Whose bright idea was it to go for a walk?"

The Broflovskis and the Marshes exchanged parental looks. Randy tried a different approach.

"Buys, you know we'll support you no matter what, right?" he asked. Kyle and Stan looked at him blankly. "No matter what sort of... um... lifestyle you choose..."

"Wait," Stan said, who'd finally caught on, "you think we're _gay?_"

"Dude, why do people keep _asking_ us that?" Kyle muttered to Stan. It will be noted for the record that his hands were still up Stan's shirt when he asked this.

"Um - aren't you?" Mr. Marsh said.

"_I'm_ not," Kyle said, putting emphasis on the "I."

Stan scowled at him. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"Man, you're in the drama club. It doesn't get much gayer than that."

"You're the one with your hands down my pants!"

"They're up your shirt, don't exaggerate," Kyle said flippantly. "Anyway, when was the last time you had a girlfriend, assrammer?" A thoughtful pause. Then Kyle said, with great amusement, "Or would you be the ram-ee? You do have a tendency to be an overemotional pussy."

Stan tackled him; they rolled around in the snow for a while, wrestling. Their parents looked on with a horrified, desperate sort of resignation.

"When did they turn... _that way?_" Mrs. Broflovski asked mournfully.

"What do you mean, _when?_ They're _always_ been like that," Kenny said.

"I suppose we've just never been around them enough to really notice," Mrs. Marsh said faintly.

"They're the faggiest fags that ever fagged," Cartman put in helpfully.

--

Eventually they pulled themselves up and brushed off snow and Cartman said, snidely, "Copping a feel?"

"Fatass, shut up," Stan said blandly. "We aren't gay."

"You're either the biggest closet case ever, or you think we're the biggest morons ever," Cartman said derisively.

"That's it; we're going back to the cabin," Kyle grumbled, and the rest of the party watched as they left. Kyle dragged Stan off by his belt.

"Gay," Cartman said.

"Gayer than sweater vests," Kenny agreed.

--

"Great. Our parents think we're sleeping together," Kyle whined on the way back.

"Well, we have. Literally." Stan pointed out. Kyle rolled his eyes.

Admittedly, Kyle _knew_ they loved each other more than the normal guy loved his friends, but he didn't think this was a matter of _how much_ they loved each other so much as a matter of _how_ they loved each other. Kyle was quite capable of loving Stan completely and still thinking screwing him would be the grossest thing ever.

He said as much.

"You're breaking my heart," Stan said with mock hurt and an exaggerated hand gesture. Kyle snorted in amusement and Stan said, "Let's go jump out at skiers from behind trees and see if any of them plow into the snow."

And that was love.

--

End


End file.
